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UNO Students Can Report Crime Via Text

Crime on campus leads to a new crime-fighting tool for the University of Nebraska Omaha. A text-message reporting system has been implemented to alert security officials to potential crimes.

"You would text 79516 and the beginning of your message needs to start out with UNO911. Put a space in there, and your message follows," security director Paul Kosel said.

It's anonymous, so the reporting party's phone number is not shared with anyone.

"If I try to reply to it, it'll reply back to E2 campus, and they can't forward it on. So we can't reply to it either," Kosel said.

The new system was prompted by an armed robbery on campus three weeks ago. Police said a man wearing a ski mask held three students at gunpoint inside their dorm before stealing the students' laptops and wallets. There are still no arrests in that case.

UNO security officials said if the text message reporting system was in place at the time, that crime could have been solved.

"They could have texted that something's going on. 'I need help.' Tell us where they're at, and we could have got there with the Omaha police as well," Kosel said.

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